There’s been a lot of debate on the web lately as to whether or not SEO marketing can still make you money. The short answer is yes.

SEO Marketing is the simplest way to drive relevant traffic to your website. If you write about baking cookies, you want people searching for cookie recipes to find you. You aren’t so interested in having automobile afficionadoes stopping by. And once those cookie bakers show up, you want Google AdSense or another content based ad program (like Chitika) to have the appropriate ads running that you know they’ll want to click on. Baking supplies. Gourmet recipes. Cookie delivery services for Easter or Christmas.

So how does it work?

Concentrated content. If you want to attrack those cookie bakers, you need to have a proliferation of the right keywords. Cookie recipes. Easy cookie recipes. Bake cookies. These are great keywords to attract the right kind of people. And the concentration within your website or blog should be a minimum of 3%. The more those keywords are mentioned, the more they will be scanned and recognized by Google and other search engines as relevant. When someone searches for those words, Google will know to put your site near the top of the listings. And if you have AdSense embedded in your site, relevant ads will appear for your readers.

I’ll be the first to admit that there isn’t as much money out there as there used to be. But that’s because there are more people on the web today than there were even five years ago. There’s a level of saturation in most niches that there wasn’t a few years ago. But that doesn’t mean that SEO isn’t important or a good way to generate page views and revenue.

There was a time not so long ago that savvy website owners could use SEO marketing and AdSense as a main source of income. Huge blogs and sites still can, but for the rest of us, it’s really just a great trickle of additional revenue. I don’t depend on it to pay the rent, but I sure didn’t scoff at the Google check I received last Thursday.

If your website caters to a niche - celebrity gossip, cooking, pet care - then you can include SEO marketing without sacrificing the quality of your content.

This website is about freelance writing, self-publishing and making money by writing for the web. Notice that most of the Google ads that appear are relevant to my topic. And you, my readers, are clicking on those ads. Which means I’m doing something right.

Try it on your site and drop me a comment after a couple of months to let me know how it’s going.

A lot of my readers have a real passion for blogging. They have at least one or two sites of their own, plus many of them contribute to group sites. The question I have for them is: If you love blogging so much, why not make a career out of it?

People who find careers that suit their passions are generally the happiest. Yet many people get stuck in the drone rut, working a boring job they feel nothing for, just to meet the monthly bills.

You can blog for money!

Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course shows tells you what kind of skills and time you need to make a career out of blogging for others, plus shows you where and how to find blogging jobs.

I used this course last year and scored several gigs out of it - short and long term. And since then I have gone back and referred to certain sections of the e-book to inspire and refresh me.

If you have a real passion for blogging, check out Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course to learn how to turn your passion into profit.

Last year I did the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge, and I think I’ll do it again this year, too.

Created by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, the 31DBBB workbook can help you make your existing blog better, more widely read and monetized to boot!

Right now Darren is offering bonuses on the book, but only until January 19:

Bonus #1: Free Report: 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track in The New Year

Written in the style of 31DBBB this report talks you through 9 things that I do at the beginning of every new year. Each step gives you a practical exercise to go away and DO to help get your blog going in the right direction. Effectively it turns the 31 day workbook into a 40 day one!

Bonus #2: Podcast with Leo Babauta from Zen Habits

Regular readers of ProBlogger will know the wisdom and insight of Leo from Zen Habits. He’s grow his blog Zen Habits from nothing to being one of the most read self help blogs in the blogosphere in just a couple of years. He’s released a book (The Power of Less) off the back of his blog and has also since launched a number of other successful blogs, profitable e-books and other products off the back of his blog.

There’s lots of good practical advice in this podcast – I came away from it with loads of ideas and inspiration myself and am sure many will benefit from it.

Bonus #3: Podcast with Neil Patel from QuickSprout

Neil Patel has built an amazing reputation and brand for himself in the last 3-4 years. He’s been a part of building two successful blogs but has also work with some amazing companies on their social media presence (like AOL, HP, Viacom and General Motors). He’s also been a part of helping blogs like TechCrunch rise to the power blogs that they are today.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook already provides:

• Intense Training – bloggers setting aside weekends or weeks to go through multiple tasks at once
• 1 Task a Day – the way we designed it – one day at a time
• 1 Task a Week – bloggers taking their time with the challenge and making the tasks week long tasks
• Monthly Cycle – bloggers using the tasks again and again each month as a monthly routine for their blogging.
• Occasional Inspirational Resource – bloggers dipping into 31DBBB on a more occasional basis – using it on days when they have time or lack inspiration.

Get your copy before January 19 to take advantage of the bonuses Darren is including. The 31DBBB should be done annually, to keep your blog in fighting form. Us bloggers get lazy, expecially over the holidays. Now is as good a time as any to shake things up again.

Copyblogger Larry Brooks has a great article today about establishing a platform of readers with a blog before reaching for the brass ring of book publishing.

Before my own deal, I’d assumed I would need a subscriber base big enough to fill the Rose Bowl. Why else would a publisher be interested?

And sure, a massive Feedburner number helps.

But in my case, my subscriber base today would fill the conference room at your average Marriott. Not that I’m complaining — after only six months it’s growing just fine, thanks.

But it does illuminate the point: Raw numbers aren’t as important as making a solid connection with a well-defined audience around a valuable niche topic.

Sometimes a writer is facing an empty bank account, and just has to bite the bullet and start word whoring.

I’m slowly coming back after a long hiatus, and I need to rebuild my client base. Currently I have a few clients who I do small jobs for from time to time, but I’ve lost my backbone clients.

Backbone clients are the ones who provide the bulk of monthly income for any freelancer. They are the recurring contracts that help a freelance writer budget from month to month, knowing they will do at least XX number of hours at XX dollars per hour. Because I could not commit hours over the past few months, I have been unable to retain these backbones.

Time to start over.

In the meantime though, while hustling to score new regulars, I’m walking the dark alleyways of freelancing, using services like Elance, Textbroker and Demand Studios to drum up pay-per-piece jobs. They don’t pay much - sometimes mere pennies per word - but do enough of them and you’ll make some fast, generally easy money. Believe me, though, this is the difference between being a crackwhore or being a high class escort. My normal hourly rate is $25+, but with places like Textbroker I’m making maybe $13/hr. Yes, I feel dirty, but momma has bills to pay!

Another bit of word whoring is Examiner.com. This is an online news source which pays per pageview. I have been the National Republican Examiner for almost a year. I haven’t updated in ages, but I’m currently working on an article to get back into it. If you can post a relevant article 2-4 times per week based on news in your area, you can be an Examiner, too! Click here to find out more about becoming an Examiner (Tell ‘em Wendy Sullivan, Examiner 3339 sent you! Yes, I will be paid for successful referrals.).

The thing with freelancing is that even when the chips are down, there’s always some menial, McDonald’s-esque job you can do for fast cash.

Like, now.

I have been living the most extraordinary adventure these past few months. As some of you may know, I am a hard-right political pundit - Canada’s Fat Ann Coulter™ if you will. And I have been thrust head on into a world of left-wing socialists. It’s fascinating, good and bad, frustrating, demeaning and empowering - all at the same time.

In this process I’ve lost everything - including my work and my podcast.

But I have kept meticulous notes, and have prepared sample chapters of this story. I told myself when the saga began “If I can get a book deal out of this, I won’t care about the horror.” And a horror it has been. As it stands, I have been trading the story for lunches and beers. I need more than that to live on, though.

So welcome to my agent-shopping odyssey, which promises to be even more daunting than the looking-glass world I’ve fallen into.

A word about comments:

I’m rarely around on the Internet to approve them. If your comment doesn’t appear, please don’t take it personally. Try to remember that I am currently in Hell, and Hell doesn’t have Wi-Fi.

The best laid plans of mice and men…

I was ahead the first day, with over 6,000 words to my credit. Then I began slacking. Then I got wrapped up in a non-fiction project (which has a heck of a potential, so I’m digging in with everything I’ve got).

So I’m about 6,000 words behind right now, with little interest in my characters. The really depressing aspect is that the characters are all people I actually know - and the story is a grossly fictionalized account of a year in my life. So basically, I’m admitting to being bored with myself. Heh.

However, we’re still not quite at the halfway point of the month, so I’m not giving up. I can still catch up and make the 50,000 target by November 30.

Emily Post said a lady should always walk with her head up and her eyes forward. Ms. Post clearly never navigated her way along crowded, pitted, buckling city sidewalks covered in slippery wet leaves.

Just sayin’.

It’s that time of the year again, folks - time to deprive yourselves of sleep and sanity, to be replaced with copious amounts of coffee. It’s time for the National Novel Writing Month- NaNoWriMo.

I have taken part in NaNo every year since 2004, but only ever met the challenge that first year. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days. Founded by Chris Baty in 1999 in San Francisco, the challenge has grown from regional to national to international. People around the world engage in mini-contests along the way, to see who’s pumping out more words per day. Some of the friendly challenges are between regions - for example, Toronto usually teams up against another city to see which side will crank out more prose.

Coffee, as mentioned, is a staple. However, my personal NaNo choice is hot chocolate with cayenne pepper and cinnamon. Mmmm.

Some participants have detailed plans and character sketches all set up before the starter gun goes off at 12:01 on November 1. I never do - which might explain why I almost never finish the contest. At least this year I’m going into it with a vague idea - better than most years!

To get an idea of how to survive and thrive in the NaNo challenge, pick up a copy of Chris Baty’s book, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days. National Novel Writing Month is not impossible - it just takes some planning, caffeine and dedication. And a touch of insanity helps, too.

Controlling Google is like bossing God around – it’s an arrogant thing to think you can do, and it won’t work anyway. It’s like Al Gore telling us we can control the weather. Seriously, you don’t actually believe that, do you? 

Google – like God – is all-powerful and more than a little scary to us mortals. (If Al Gore commanded that kind of respect, maybe we’d believe him.)

I’ve mentioned the basics of SEO Marketing in the past, and these are great tips to adhere to. But like in life, there can be unintended consequences with Google. Once you start treating Google with the reverence it (seems to think it) deserves, you can eliminate some of these consequences.

Complaining

I love to complain. Who doesn’t? But let’s say the last three articles on your site have been about your unbelievably bad trip to Maui. Guess what’s going to populate your Google ads on the page? That’s right! Trips to Maui!

Personal story: My regular political site spends a lot of time decrying the atrocities against women perpetrated in the name of a particular major world religion. Guess what my Google ads are for? Uh huh – dating and marriage sites geared to that faith. You can’t make this stuff up, people.

It sees you when you’re sleeping

Do not try to lie to Google – or Santa Clause. They know. Don’t ask me how, but they do. If you send an email out to your friends telling them to click on your Google ads, Google will know. And they’ll lock your account. Cast you into perdition. No amount of Hail Marys can get you out of this. And you’ll get coal for Christmas.

Quality over Quantity

For some annoying reason, Google doesn’t give a rat’s ass if you score a huge link from a prominent site that drives eleventy-trillion people to your site. All that matters is that they go for the reasons that Google themselves decree.

Personal Story: I posted a pic of Dita Von Teese on my site. This gets search engine traffic. The people that come to me from search engines mean more to Google than the ones who come to me because I got linked by some super hot blogdaddy that drives thousands of people to me. Go figure.

It’s all about the search engines. Nothing else matters.

So what can you do about it? 

I likened Google to God for a reason. It is all-powerful, and it is in charge. If you don’t like the way Google runs things, you can make up your own search engine and ad structure. It worked for Martin Luther, and it might just work for you.

Or, you can stop being such a whiney-baby and work within the system provided. You can excel at it, drive the right kind of traffic and go to Google Heaven.

There is no compulsion in Google. You can always opt out. Heathen.